At Sea

We left Fremantle yesterday and have 3 days at sea until Lombok in Indonesia.  Originally we were to go to Bali, but it’s a holiday and everything will be closed, even the port.  This afternoon an announcement was made requesting blood donors with type A+.  I have A+ but didn’t have my donor card and they had no ability to test.  However, there were several people that answered the page and the doctor did get enough blood.  I have no idea what happened to the man that would require a transfusion, but later that afternoon they asked that the decks be clear of all passengers as a helicopter was coming to evacuate him.  While typing this, one of the crew came to our cabin and told us to evacuate the room by 7:15 this evening.  Since we have a balcony they had to take in all of the outside furniture from the port side of the ship and they also want everyone in the interior. The pick-up was to be over the pool and they had to take away every deck chair along with several of the tall lamps surrounding the upper deck. The captain just announced that the helicopter would arrive about 8:00 on the port side (our side) and that no cameras (flash) can be allowed.  Fortunately, my camera has a night setting and I won’t need to use my flash.  How sad to be fortunate enough to do a world cruise and have it end with a serious illness.

It’s the following day now and we had breakfast with the wife of the fellow evacuated last night.  She only knows that he had internal bleeding and took 4 pints of blood.  After the helicopter picked him up (she was not allowed to accompany him) and took him to the base, a light plane then transported him back to Perth.  They were lucky that this happened close to a major city in Australia instead of some third world country.  So far she has no idea what the problem is or if he will be able to come back to the ship or if she will need to take him back to the U.S.  I’ll keep you posted.